Shooting down a claim to the contrary by his opponent in the upcoming midterm election, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said he would indeed attend a scheduled Thursday meeting at the White House, during which he and other palmetto state pols plan to ask President Donald Trump to the reverse the Department of Energy’s decision to cancel construction of a plutonium disposal plant at the Aiken, S.C. site.
A Wilson spokesperson said Tuesday that the eight-term congressman, whose district includes Aiken, “will be attending this meeting in the White House.”
Wilson’s campaign said Tuesday that the congressman cancelled previously scheduled campaign events to attend the scheduled meeting along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and South Gov. Henry McMaster (R).
Wilson’s statements followed a claim from his Democratic challenger, Army vet and real-estate businessman Sean Carrigan, that the incumbent would be “absent from that meeting.”
Carrigan’s campaign did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.
Last week, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) cancelled a nearly 20 year-old contract for the Mixed Oxide Fabrication Fabrication Facility (MFFF): a plant designed to turn 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel.
South Carolina wants to continue construction of MFFF and has sued NNSA in federal court to stop the agency from winding down MFFF and converting the partially built facility into a factory capable of annually producing up to 50 nuclear warhead cores called plutonium pits by 2030.
Wilson has never really had a close race since he first won election in 2001. In 2016, he bested a Democratic challenger by nearly 25 percentage points, according to the website Ballotpedia. His smallest margin of victory since taking office was roughly seven percentage points in 2008.
